A Shapeless Flame
by Xekstrin
Summary: Moira and Gabriel were cut from the same cloth. What they felt had no proper name or shape. It flowed around them endlessly, like oil on fire. Like blood.
1. Chapter 1

"I don't have a lot of time left." Gabriel wasn't sure how he could make that more clear— she'd seen the results. The report was laid open right in front of her in a manila envelope. "Six months, if we're being optimistic." He was not very good at being optimistic.

Moira O'Deorain had been under his command for approximately two years. She carried a reputation over her shoulders, flowing like a battle flag dipped in blood. It was part of why he wanted to reach out to her. Traditional methods weren't working.

Back in the day he and Jack had been considered rebels. When the structure of the world fell apart, the only people who thrived were agents of chaos like them. Like McCree. Bringing _him_ to heel had been easier than expected. Under all the turmoil McCree had a hunger in him for something none of them dared to name, though they all felt it keenly.

So Gabriel collected his misfits down in the dungeons of Blackwatch, trying to keep some of that old spark alive for when it was inevitably needed.

Even if no one wanted to admit it, there was always a need for people like them.

Her prolonged silence pulled him out of his own thoughts, and he was startled to see Moira staring at him intensely. The sheaves of paper rested under her spidery fingers, splayed out as though she would have fought him for them.

"Then give them to me." O'Deorain's expression was even, but her eyes wavered slightly, trying to drink him up without being too obvious about it. They burned like candle flames, shivering with that same hunger he saw in all of his Blackwatch recruits.

Not many things surprised him anymore. "What?"

"Your six months. What little life and time you have." Her palm was cold and dry, resting over his as she leaned forward, more earnest than he'd ever seen her.

"Give what's left to me."

* * *

Gabriel took his mother out of Los Angeles before the omnic fighting ever reached its fullest fury. Of course nowhere was truly _safe_ , but the Northwest was slightly better protected. His father died six months into the crisis. Overexposure to Omnium radiation gave him cancer. One moment he was here, the next he was gone.

So he wasn't surprised to find out the same fate awaited him, down to the life expectancy. The only part that unsettled him was the sense that this had somehow been delayed. What had he done to escape it for over a decade? It hit so many other people right away. Who else among his squadron would wake up coughing blood and aching head to toe? Who else had been exposed, and when, and how long, and should he try to warn them?

In all likelihood, it was that serum they injected him and Jack with that kept the sickness at bay as long as it had.

While he was visiting his mother, O'Deorain caught up to him in the Pacific Northwest. She cut an unmistakable figure on the rocky coast, sharp shoulders and a sleek black profile. Still he didn't quite believe his eyes until she was in front of him, cheeks flushed with cold and a scowl on her face.

"There you are. I've been looking all over for you," she said. Chiding, as though it was an error on his part that he'd been somewhere out of reach. Setting down her briefcase at their feet, she dropped to one knee and rummaged through it, humming and speaking conversationally. "Luckily I was able to finish this ahead of my projected timeline."

Straightening up to her full, impressive height, she looked down at him and took his hand. "Roll up your sleeve."

That second part was delivered dry and clipped, like they would talk on missions. Gabriel found himself reacting to it instinctively, because she was his medic and he knew better than to argue with her when she slowly pushed down the plunger of a needle, injecting him with God-Knows-What.

O'Deorain slapped a bandaid on it and disposed of the needle in a bag she'd brought with her. Nearby the waves crashed against the coast, each time sending up a spray of fine mist. She blinked a few times, squinting at him. "In around two hours we'll administer the second round of injections. Perhaps it's better we're doing this where there are no cameras."

If she was going to play it like this, he would respond in kind. "You want to tell me what the fuck is going on, Fate?"

Her lips twitched. That was her callsign before he drafted her into Blackwatch, from the centerfold to the underbelly.

"You came to me and said you'd give me your six months," Moira reminded him. "If you've changed your mind, let me know. Otherwise every day is valuable time wasted."

Gabriel understood the numb ache of sudden deaths very well. A soldier sniped right next to him, or a family member wasting away to an illness with no discernable hope for a cure. He'd been on the other end, now it was his turn.

He felt sad for the people he'd leave behind. For Jack and Ana, left with the task of rebuilding their broken world without him. But mostly he was pissed off and impatient.

Maybe that's why he went to Moira first. Something about her felt cold and detached and he didn't want to console anyone just yet. He wasn't sure her pragmatism was much of a step up from anguished wailing, though.

"So you wanted me to be your new guinea pig?" Gabriel asked. "You think you can... fix this?"

"People only come to me when they need something." Moira fixed his sleeve, but left her fingertips on his forearm. "What did you think I meant?"

He wasn't quite sure, now that she asked. Considering his past, it wouldn't be odd for her to assume he'd be game to playing someone else's lab rat again. The Soldier Enhancement Program had made him and Jack what they were, hadn't it?

Except when she asked for his life, it hadn't sounded like that at all. It had felt like the oddest love confession he'd ever received.

Maybe it was sad and pathetic that he'd thought that at all. But Moira was here, offering him a chance. That couldn't go without some acknowledgement, some quid quo pro.

"Where are you staying?" he asked instead of answering her question.

"Local base," Moira said. Overwatch had living arrangements for transient agents, even black sheep and exiles like her. "Didn't want to waste money on a hotel."

He checked his tablet, seeing the last message from his mother. Lunch was ready, if he wanted any. There would surely be enough for a guest. "Got any plans?"

"None. Perhaps I will stay here and enjoy the coast, since I've never been to this section of the globe before." She glanced over at the ocean. Gleaming white filtration systems, for the town's water supply, rose up like whale ribs out of the charcoal waves. Moira's unsettlingly bright eyes narrowed in thought as she studied them. "This weather reminds me of home."

It was drizzling, he realized then as he tore his attention away from her to look at the sky. A low gray mist settled over the entire world. He hadn't noticed it at first, mistaking it for the cold ocean's spray. "Most people say it's kinda shit."

"And I said something to contradict that?"

Gabriel huffed in laughter, breath fogging up in the cold.

"Come on," he said, extending a hand to her. "If we need to reconvene in two hours anyway, you might as well come home with me."

* * *

Most of Gabriel's love affairs started with a surge of passion, heat, excitement at the unknown. Like striking a match. With Moira, it was more like skipping stones on a lake. Surging forward, jagged and unsteady, but reaching an incredible distance in a very short amount of time.

They leapfrogged over the awkward firsts, landing squarely in a place that was decidedly domestic.

 _I mean, I introduced her to my mother on the first date._

Moira never pretended she didn't love a dying man, which he was grateful for. More than once he returned to that initial conversation in her lab, why he'd approached her and no one else, how Moira never properly explained what she meant when she asked for his life. But he'd given it to her the only way he knew how, and she treated it with respect. That was good; he suspected by the end of this he'd have very little dignity left.

Again, objectively, this was sad and probably a little pathetic. But it never _felt_ like that, not once.

"What'll you do if I don't die?" Gabriel asked her, sitting on the edge of the examination table in nothing but his boxer shorts. She smoothed electrodes over his bare skin, brushing her gloved fingers once over his buzzed head.

"That would be a very pleasant surprise," was all she said.

He had to struggle not to approach this relationship like it was a wary animal, cautious and slow to avoid frightening her. They didn't really have... time for that. Even when, through some miracle, she managed to fix his lungs and extend his life expectancy by another five months.

He pulled her down by the back of her neck, bowing her head so he could kiss the crown of her head.

"Eleven out of twelve ain't bad."

At first they didn't tell anyone what they were doing, not the least because most of it was highly illegal. Moira was taking advantage of a dying man to test out all her theories. He was her superior officer. They never signed a release form, they never sat down and properly stitched out every inch of consent and bodily autonomy. If anyone found out, he would probably be fine— threats and punishments never dissuaded him in the past, and that was before he had a guillotine hanging over his neck. The consequences, the fallout, they would all be hers.

But in the end, they knew they couldn't keep it secret forever. Especially when he changed.

It first happened when they were in bed. Not like that. Moira had a habit of sprawling out over his chest when the hour grew late. Almost like a lean, lanky, bony cat.

She pressed her ear to his chest. "Let me hear your heartbeat, Gabriel," she murmured sleepily, her tablet held loosely in one hand. On the screen were more theoretical formulas, ways to try and reengineer him, to stop the spread of cancerous cells and regrow what was destroyed by their rapidfire chemo.

She kept lifting her head occasionally to look at it, squinting in exhaustion, refusing to relax until he started stroking her hair.

"Need to make sure my pulse is good?"

"Need to make sure your pulse is good," she agreed in another mumble, this time muffled as she kissed his neck. Soon she was asleep. Then it was exactly like having a big cat on top of him, and he couldn't risk moving and waking her.

She was still fully dressed, so he carefully worked the knot of her tie loose and unbuttoned her collar. The tablet fell out of her limp hand, sliding down the blanket.

That's when his comm started buzzing off the hook, an endless flood of messages. Shit. He tried to reach for it without moving Moira too much, straining, his fingers stretched out towards the bedside table.

If he could only reach a little further, if he could only stretch a little more—

He slipped out from under her, collapsing into ink and blood and gas. Searing pain lanced him from head to toe as he rematerialized on the other side of the room, drenched in sweat and panting heavily.

"What the _fuck_!?"

Moira snapped awake, on the edge of the bed on her hands and knees to stare down at him in alarm.

"Oh," she said. "Shit."

* * *

"I hate wasting my time with this," she said the next day, rolling up her own sleeve, tapping the needle. She sat on the edge of the examination table. "But we do need a healthy subject as a control group."

He glowered at her from the doorway, arms crossed. "So you didn't intend for this to happen."

"I didn't intend for _this_ to happen. I thought we could sublimate the cancerous cells into gas, mark them somehow and then vaporize them, making them easier to expunge—"

"You were going to have me fart myself to a cure?"

"Reyes." They were on a first name basis by now, of course. The surname was only busted out when she was _really_ mad.

Very few things got under her skin so thoroughly as when he made light of her research.

But she wasn't the one turning into a gas monster, was she? "You know they were trying to make heart medication when they invented viagra?" he said. "This could be your viagra. Gas boys!"

"Don't be an absolute bleeding _tick_ about this." Moira refused to look at him, instead moving on with her plan. But she was a hard stick, and it was harder when she was stressed, her hands unsteady and shaking.

So he stopped her before she could continue, one hand around her wrist. "No." He stepped closer, forcing her hand onto the table. "No more. We're done."

"This is just a minor setback, Reyes, we can't let this intimidate us—" Mismatched eyes glared up at him, softened only when he kissed her gently.

He could feel her struggle, confused and angry. She recoiled only to lean in again, dropping the needle to grasp the back of his neck and pull him closer.

Her legs wrapped around his waist, ankles hooked together on the small of his back. Kissing her deeper, Gabriel untucked her shirt to touch her bare stomach. The soft white flesh twitched at every little contact, a moan turning into a whimper as he ground his hips forward.

They were the only ones down here. The sound of their lips parting was terribly loud in that silence, as she grasped his head to push him further down, directing him where she wanted to be kissed.

"You smell good," he said, kissing her fondly on the cheek before moving lower to slowly suck a mark onto the hollow of her neck.

"This is an attempt to sabotage me." Sharp talons never sank in deep, but scratched soothing lines down his scalp, encouraging and gentle.

"No, you do. You smell like a nice perfume. The kind with high-budget commercials." He pulled back to splay his hands wide, dramatically. " _Handsome_ by Versace."

"That's not a real perfume."

"It should be. The official O'Deorain scent."

Her lips pursed, to stop herself from shooting back. After a moment of thought, she teased down the zipper of his hoodie. Gaze sharpening with want, she spread her hands to open it wider, rubbing her fingertips over his chest like she was in someone else's house, and wasn't sure what she was allowed to touch. "Distracting me with something you think I'd like is a cheap move."

It never occurred to him that she thought he might be faking this. "What," he said, one palm over hers to press it flat against his skin, giving quiet permission for her to touch wherever, however she wanted. "You don't think I want this too?

"Oh no, Gabriel." She was quick to correct him. A sharp smile sliced through her hesitation as she lifted up her chin, displaying self confidence that bordered on audacity. "Of that I have no doubt."

Then she relaxed, reluctantly letting him go. Her solid black dress shoes clicked onto the floor as she stood up, her hands still lingering on his chest. "But the sooner we discuss this, the better." She paused to kiss him once more. "You wish to cease experimentation?"

"If it means you'll stop shooting yourself up with mystery trial drugs, then yes."

"It's the quickest path to figuring out what's wrong," Moira pointed out. "More test subjects, more data."

"You'd be in danger because of me."

Her head quirked to the side. "It wouldn't be the first time."

The worst part was he couldn't disagree. He'd been there on her first mission for Blackwatch, hadn't he? Moira had been still signing off as 'Fate' back then. She'd asked him to help her shave and shape her new beret. In retrospect he wondered if that was just an excuse to talk to him. He wondered a lot of things in retrospect, recently.

"As much as I hate to admit it, I'm being stretched thin," Moira continued, hands still wandering but staying chaste for now. "If I could devote myself entirely to this project, we'd soar by leaps and bounds." Her hands rested on his arms, squeezing them to convey how serious this was. "I need more freedom. I need more funding."

"And," Moira added reluctantly, "I probably need Angela."

A million red alerts went up in his head. "How is asking your ex-wife to help your boyfriend a good idea, again?"

Moira's devious little grin reappeared. "Boyfriend?"

He leaned closer, frown deepening. "O'Deorain," he said warningly. "Do we need to have a talk? Are we not on the same page here?"

"I just think of you as _lover_ in my head, is all. _Boyfriend_ is adorable." She danced her fingertips up the side of his face, tugging the shell of his ear.

"Now who's distracting," he muttered darkly, twitching his head out of her grasp and trying not to get any redder. "You think Mercy's gonna be up to the task?"

"Of course she will, she's my guardian angel," Moira said. "She'll leap on the chance to work on our old project again, and she was never as in love with the rules as she pretends to be. Jack is the one we might have to lie to— Give me a week to whip up some documents and I'll make it look like what we're doing is legal."

God bless his Blackwatch team. They always knew exactly how and when to bend the rules.

But something had him curious. "Old project?"

Moira nodded. "She and I have been trying to tackle cancer cures since... oh, since before we were married." Her eyes went somewhere else, somewhere soft and fond as she lost herself in nostalgia. "We spent years daydreaming about how we'd change the world. Of course it was the medical equivalent of an art student doing nothing except practice their signature—"

She bit her lower lip suddenly, eyes frozen like a pane of glass.

"I'm sorry," Gabriel said softly.

"It's fine," Moira said. And then, "It still hurts."

The back of her neck was cold to the touch, but he brought her head down again, to press her brow to his. "Yeah, I know."

Moira tucked her arms under his, stroking his back. When she kissed him again it was hard and needy, followed by a sharp inhale like she was trying to take the air from his lungs.

"You can't stop me," she said, and kissed him again. "I'll run the trials on myself regardless of whether or not you decide to follow suit."

He gripped her arms in a warning squeeze. "As your superior officer—"

"Please." If looks could kill, he'd be six feet under already. "Do not insult me again."

So he kissed her instead, running his hands over her to muss up her sharp profile. All the angles became wrinkled, soft fabric and exposed flesh. Clean, tight, snake-hipped, effortlessly trim and fashionable Moira drove him crazy on the best of days; when he saw her fall apart under his hands, it was enough to make him go blind with lust.

After tossing his hoodie aside, Gabriel rolled his fingers in soothing circles on her back, massaging away the stress she carried there. Tense muscles shifted under his touch, the silky texture of her small black bra contrasting with a knot of scar tissue on her shoulder, a nasty exit wound that he'd had to stitch up himself.

"You know, there's a comfy little cot in my office closet," she offered, and then squeaked when he hefted her up into his arms to carry her across the lab. She laughed, her long legs wrapping around his waist again— though she had to duck not to smack her head against the doorframe when they entered.

"Whoops," Gabriel said.

"I'm six foot five," she said, voice dry. "I'm used to it."

Despite the promise of a cot, he set her down on the edge of her desk, kissing her until she was leaning back with the force of it. Chest to chest, with just enough space for her to work her hands between them, stroking over his abdomen in open admiration. Pushing her shirt from her shoulders, he kissed down each one, ending on the pulse points of her wrists.

Sinking down to his knees, he pulled her thighs apart, kissing between her legs hard enough to be felt through the fabric of her pants. If her sharp, pleasured gasp was any indicator.

"Tease," Moira hissed. One hand held him back by the top of his head while the other fumbled with her belt, trembling with anticipation. Together they worked her pants down past smooth thighs.

He framed her hips with his hands, toying over the elastic band of her tight black boy shorts. "Any requests?"

She tilted her head to the side, thinking about it as she rubbed his head some more, before moving down to pass hands over his broad shoulders. "Well... as much as I love your tongue, darling..."

"No need to be coy."

"In my desk. The bag in the bottom drawer."

Curious but excited, he gave her one more kiss before doing as she asked. In the bottom drawer there was a makeup bag and what looked like a set of spare clothing. No doubt for nights she spent down here in the labs.

When he opened the zipper, he found a small packet of condoms, a single sealed set of disposable latex gloves, lube, and a bullet vibrator.

"Oooooh," he sang. "Moira, you are a _very_ dirty girl."

Her gaze remained even and level, expressionless and revealing nothing. Despite that, a red flush spread across her nose and cheeks, brushing over her freckle-dusted shoulders. She unhooked her bra and tossed it aside, raising an eyebrow as if to ask if he was done talking.

"Do you jack off in your office during work hours?" There was no judgement in the question, not when most of his attention was on playing with the different settings. When he looked up, Moira was red all the way down her pale chest, and she couldn't make eye contact with him. "Oh, so you definitely do."

" _Once_ ," she said sternly. "After everyone else had left."

"Nah." His voice, throttled by the treatment and by years of hard use, registered as a low growl. "I bet you do it all the time."

The little bullet hummed quietly in his hands, quiet enough for stealthy use. He imagined Moira, pants hitched down over her spread knees. Sprawled at her desk chair, tie loosened but not undone as she worked herself to orgasm. The mental image paled in comparison to the real thing in front of him, of course, but it still had him getting hard enough to be distracting.

He played with her, passing the vibrator over her chest until her nipples stood up at the attention, eager for his mouth. The steady thrum of her pulse beat under his tongue; he sucked, trailing open-mouthed kisses back up to her neck to leave his mark there too.

"I bet you think about me, don't you, Doctor?"

The way her nails bit into his shoulders told him she was mad, but she did it to pull him closer. The curve of her clit against him, plump and throbbing, made him want to strip them both down to nothing and fuck her until the desk broke.

"Did you think about me when you were fingering yourself? Wishing it was my cock instead?"

Gabriel rolled the bullet over her, teasing her through the fabric of her underwear. The urge to take his time was stronger than the growing need between his own legs. Time was the one resource they didn't have at their command, but this wasn't something he liked to rush. Not when it was so much fun to peel her apart, piece by piece.

The most fascinating aspect of it all was that she _let_ him. Some part of him wondered if that was her idea of a fair trade— his body for hers, his power as Commander struck down as her patient, enough trust built to hold each other's lives and dignity in their palms.

He'd seen Moira field all the accusations hurled at her, from half-joking literary comparisons to the very real, very virulent, very persistent idea that she was some modern Mengele. It hurt her. Like all pain, most of it eventually hardened into callus. But a lot of things hurt her that never stopped being vulnerable, that she shared with no one except him.

And, of course, Gabriel promised to take those secrets to the grave.

She ground against his hand, struggling to maintain her narrowed eyes, her tight-lipped frown. When he moved to kiss her she turned her face away, lips parting in a startled, ragged gasp.

"Moira," he said gently, kissing her cheek instead. "Fate. Look at me or I'll stop."

She did. Lips slightly parted, she gulped back every noise on a shaky breath, sweating and writhing against him in increasing desperation.

"That's a good girl," he said, petting her hair out of her face with his free hand. The other slipped into her underwear, pulling it down just enough to hold her in his hand. Pressed between the center of his palm and her soft shaft, the vibrator pulsed in slow, gentle rhythms. "They trained you to follow orders back in Overwatch, didn't they?"

Everything about her screamed that she was ready to come. He rolled the bullet underneath her sensitive head, rubbing it against her as he clicked it again. No more waves, but an unrelenting, steady purr.

"But this is where you belong." He spoke over her choked sob, allowing her to break eye contact and bow her head against his neck. She bit his shoulder, needing something, anything to keep her traitorous mouth busy, prompting a pained groan of pleasure from him. "Right here in Blackwatch with me."

Moira nodded in between a muffled agreement, hips rocking in a frantic rhythm.

When he lovingly stroked a hand down her back, he could feel every notch of her spine. Leaning in closer, he held her tight, murmuring in her ear. "...Say _yes, sir_."

A little shudder ran through her, all the way down that jagged, sharp frame.

"Yes," she moaned, searching and digging and pulling the words out shard by shard. A low, raspy clatter of a voice, surgical instruments on the desk. "Yes, Commander."

Not what he'd asked, but the result he intended was the same.

It was like a dam had been broken, air feeding into a spark and lifting it up into a full inferno. No longer silenced, she whimpered openly, volume rising as the last mental barrier was breached. "Yes... yes! I want to stay here— I want you, Commander, to stay here with you—" Moira's breath hitched, her pulse pounding in his hand. " _Commander_ —!"

He squeezed.

"Gabriel! _God!_ "

She came with a noiseless scream, tapering off into sobs as she spilled inside his palm with needy, quivering thrusts.

When he clicked the toy off, she groaned as if in pain. Moira's hips shifted; she rubbed her face against his neck and huffed.

"You're an ass."

Gabriel kissed her bare shoulder, pleased to see it bright red. "Love you too." Stepping back, he set the toy aside to lick his hand clean, staring at Moira with a pleased grin. She was trembling still, eyes shining with unshed tears. But all the tension had bled out of her, replaced with lazy indulgence. "God, you're an illegal amount of cute."

She reclined on her desk, neck lolling as she stretched it carelessly. Bite marks littered her chest and shoulders; she rubbed a palm over her bruised neck, closing her eyes and sighing in relief. "Tell me something I don't know, Commander."

Before he could think of a fun fact, try to really come up with something she didn't know in order to make her smile, she reached out and stroked him through his sweatpants. He'd gone soft in the distraction of making her come. At that simple touch, all the air caught in his throat, a little choked grumble.

"Shall I repay the favor?" she wondered, pulling him closer.

"Eh... You don't gotta." It was a cliche, but he was getting old and it showed. He wasn't young anymore, not cut diamond-hard with a cock to match. Not healthy anymore. The only reason he could traipse around and pretend things were normal was because of his stint in the SEP. Anyone else would have been bedridden at this point— as his father had been.

"But I want to."

In a moment their positions were reversed, him reclining on the desk while she sank down to her knees. His hands filled themselves with her soft hair, stroking through red strands to anchor himself as Moira took him into her mouth half-hard, and sucked.

It was a slow start, and once he no longer had Moira at his mercy it was hard to stay focused. Everything else threatened to crowd up his head: how cold the room was, the needle waiting in the other room, the grave lingering at the end of his path, and then how pretty Moira looked, glancing up at him with those strange, bright eyes.

She stood up just to kiss him, rummaging around in the bag for the bottle of lube. "Move with me, Reyes," she teased, her hand slick with spit and silky silicone as she stroked him. "If you want to come you have to work for it."

Uh oh. His surname. Was she mad? He _had_ been kind of mean with the _yes sir_ thing. They didn't always let the lines blur like that during sex, but he found she enjoyed it more often than not.

Her lips were warm, though. Soft and a little chapped. He drank in every detail as a matter of course; the SEP had sharpened his memory and all five senses. As he deteriorated it meant he quickly became overwhelmed with too many sensations, but right now it meant he could feel Moira's body against him and be concerned with nothing else.

He rubbed her breasts in his hands, stroking her all over before settling on her ass and squeezing. The _sounds_ she made when he did that were only rivaled by him spreading her cheeks apart to circle her asshole with a finger. Moira shivered, her pace quickening as she rocked her hips back and forth, torn between his thigh between her legs and his gentle exploration of her asshole.

"Distracting... me," she ground out between huffs.

"What? I'm workin' for it," he said by way of explanation, keeping her tight against him as he thrust into her slick palm.

They kissed messily, her breath hot on his lips. With his fingers wet he could please her better, toy with that tight ring of muscle and nerves and pleasure. When she gasped again he came close, so hard it hurt as he felt himself reaching a peak he couldn't climb down from.

And Moira stopped, merely holding him, watching his expression carefully. Stuttering to a halt, he waited for her to say something, but she just smiled.

"Well? I'm waiting."

Oh.

He was too far gone to worry about his pride, instead taking her hand to finish himself off. But she growled when he did that, and he was forced to touch anywhere else, himself, the grainy wood of the desk, and pump into her tightly held fist until he was there again, _there_ , so close, _so close—_

Moira let go of him just to run a wet palm over his chest, murmuring fond, sweet nothings.

"Moira!" he shouted, orgasm interrupted _again_. "Come on!"

"Oh, I see," she said, tweaking his nipple. He flinched away, frowning. "You're allowed to tease me, but I can't tease you. Is that how this is going to work, Commander?"

"You are gonna get it," he said, one finger raised warningly.

Her eyes glittered with mirth. "What a wonderful thought."

Despite her words she was down on her knees again in an instant, working him up with no intent of stopping. He choked, hands caressing down her scalp over and over again to brush her hair out of her face. Moira took him into her mouth as deep as she could, working his shaft with one hand while the other scratched mindless patterns on his hip, striking a row of dark red lines over his scarred thighs.

When he came, his knees almost gave out. He trembled, piercing pleasure fading out in little waves as Moira finally pulled away with a smirk, lips shining wet and pink.

"Come here," he said breathlessly, getting down to kiss her tenderly, swipe the taste of himself from her with the tip of his tongue.

Moira smiled against his mouth, held so tight that he could feel her heart beating next to his. They couldn't have sounded more different, even to someone who didn't know the truth. Fluttering strong, and weary, cold, out-of-sync.

* * *

In the safety of his bedroom, fully dressed again, he watched her pace and mutter to herself, practicing what she'd say to Angela. He offered to do it himself; he loved Angela too, just not the same way Moira did. And there was no bad blood between them.

"No," she said shortly. "This is my experiment, I have to take ownership of it."

"Oh, of course. Cause this affects nobody but you."

She gave him an unreadable look, blank and mild.

Okay, so she wasn't going to rise to the bait. "How are we going to convince Jack to sign off on something that's probably killing me as much as the cancer is?" Gabriel asked after a while, rubbing the back of his neck. Two, three years ago he would have had a clue.

But the divide between him and his best friend was growing too deep to pass, these days.

"Same way we did before," Moira said. "Same way Angela managed to get Shimada the treatment he needed."

Moira stood straight, gaze expectant. Waiting for Gabriel to stop her, to contradict her, to insist that they hadn't dangled a second chance at life to the youngest Shimada in order to manipulate him and gain access to his underworld connections. She waited for Gabriel to defend their actions.

He didn't.

His palms turned into fists on his lap. "You want to weaponize me."

"Yes," she said.

At least it was out in the open now.

"We could figure out how to isolate what's happening to you, assuming it's not just a fluke," Moira continued on, musing out loud. She resumed pacing, nervous energy not the least bit dampened by their little session in the lab. "If this treatment nets the same... ghostly effect on other cancer victims, we could put a host of fresh bodies back on the field. Jack will eat it up."

The worst part is Gabriel knew he would, though Jack would likely have a different way to justify it.

"Why do we need Shimada again?" Gabriel asked weakly.

"His lineage is uniquely adept at channeling electromagnetic impulses that are naturally present in the body, if we could apply the same theories to you—"

"I can become gassy boy on command, like he gets green and sparky?"

"...If you say gassy boy one more time I'm going to be very cross with you, Gabriel."

Still, she hadn't disagreed with his assessment. Getting up from the bed, he pulled her into a loose embrace, his chin resting on her shoulder. "What a regular group of freaks we are, down here in the dungeon," he said to no one in particular, staring out at nothing, heartbroken and exhausted.

In the morning, he awoke to the sound of his shower running. With one arm braced over his eyes, he listened to Moira rustle quietly in the darkness, trying not to wake him. She always woke up earlier than he did, which was no small feat. She said she liked the still hours of the morning, when the whole world was quiet. She said she got her best work done then, waiting for the dawn to rise.

"Gabriel."

She spoke softly, brushing one hand over his sleeping form.

"Gabriel, darling, I hate to bother you. But did you see where I put my contact lenses?"

"Mmm." He lowered his arm to blink at her sleepily. "In the thingie. You took 'em off last night and put them in the little... Round thingie."

"Well yes, but where _is_ the thingie?" She stopped, then rolled her eyes. "The case for my contact lenses. Did you see where I placed it?

He rolled out of bed to help her search, checking the pockets of his pants and all the flat surfaces in his room. When they came up empty-handed, she huffed, then gave him a quick kiss on the lips in apology. "Nevermind. I have spares in my lab. Go back to bed."

Gabriel agreed under his breath, but didn't let her go without a proper kiss. When she tried to make a brisk exit, he grabbed her by the arm and tugged her up against him. One hand lingered on her waist, the other running through her loose hair. Not styled today, just left swinging in soft strands down past her cheeks. "I'll see you later, beautiful."

When he kissed her, he made it last. And when she pulled away, she was sulking and red to her roots.

"You're a very silly man," she murmured, kissing him again before finally taking her leave.

He found her contact lenses in his medicine cabinet, a few hours later. Without thinking, he put them in his pocket, knowing he would see her later in the day.

Until then, he had his own job to do.

No one knew about his sickness yet, though many were beginning to suspect. Ana had records of everything anyone did, and nothing got past those hawk eyes of hers. Still, she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut during debriefings with Jack, where they went over the tasks for the day, figured out who was deployed where and for how long and what did they need and when, the dry logistics of keeping boots on the ground in the shittiest parts of the world and making sure the people filling those boots weren't hungry, sick, or injured.

And all of it of course working and weaving through a million miles of red tape.

 _God forbid we insult some prince or prime minister with—_ he checked— _water purification kits._

Gabriel looked across the table and hardly recognized the man staring back at him. Without Ana there, a constant source of calming energy, what would he have said? What would he have done? With so little time left in his life, did he really want to spend it here, boiling in frustration as he was left shackled, too afraid to truly speak his mind?

His feet carried him to the medical ward, wanting to talk to Ziegler about those field rez kits. The ones in his Blackwatch facilities were still version 2.0; he needed something with a faster response time if his people were going to come back from missions alive.

The sound of laughter hit him first, some familiar and one raspy as rusty steel. Cadet Oxton and Ziegler were both sitting on one of the examination tables, leaning against each other. Oxton was in tears, wiping her eyes over and over again.

"No. Tell me you didn't!" she gasped, fanning herself.

"I'm afraid I did," Genji responded gravely. "There were only two left and I would rather die than let Hanzo win."

"Did the police have to fish you out of there or something?"

"The fire department," Genji said, and then blood-red eyes caught Gabriel's and the young Shimada went completely still and quiet. "Hello, Commander."

The other two stopped as well, though they didn't tense up at the sight of him. Gabriel nodded, feeling like an intruder. He wished Genji didn't slink around him like a nervous cat. It wasn't as though he forbade from from getting along with Overwatch members. If anything, he was glad Genji and Cadet Oxton seemed to have hit it off.

Another freak for the dungeon, he thought, eyes drawn down to the accelerator on her chest. Guess they were all drawn to each other.

Angela, comparatively, seemed perfect. It was no wonder Moira had fallen for her. Young, brilliant, beautiful, kind. More than once he'd heard rumblings of their divorce, but never wanted to pry too deep. It wasn't his business.

"Can I help you, Gabriel?" Angela asked, smiling brightly at him as Oxton and Genji both made themselves scarce.

He felt the contact lenses in his pocket, thinking of Moira down below. Working just as diligently as her ex-wife. That was something they had in common; no doubt it was what brought them together, since they still produced amazing results when they were locked in a room with one another.

Unbidden, he was presented with a simple, soothing mental image: when he died, Moira and Angela might get back together. That would be good. He didn't like the thought of Moira lingering too long without him, mourning him.

He didn't want her to be alone.

"Ah..." he hesitated when he realized Angela was staring at him still, expectant and curious. "Nothing. Just making sure you guys are all good up here."

Her brows pinched together. "What's wrong?" she asked at once, stepping closer to peer at him, up and down. "You do look rather pale."

Gabriel made some space between them, hands out to keep her at bay. "Whoa, personal space, doc. I'm fine."

"Please, Gabriel. I know you." Dark blue eyes narrowed at him, scrutinizing. Damn. He'd forgotten how easily Angela picked him apart. "Whenever you're in trouble, the first thing you do is go about trying to solve everyone else's problems. What's wrong?"

He grimaced. "Do I do that?"

"You really do."

Fortunately he was able to deflect most of her concerns by reminding her about needing the rez pack 2.5 for his crew. That softened her up considerably, and she was back to being cheerful, chatty Mercy with him.

At one point he patted her on the shoulder, fondly, and she smiled up at him. "Promise you'll come to me first if you do need something?" she asked.

"Of course," he lied, because that's what Blackwatch did best.


	2. Chapter 2

"You are... so interesting, Gabriel."

She held a vial of his blood aloft, thinking out loud as she studied it. Ruby red, gleaming, just a few black ghostly particles floating within. It was as clean a sample as she could get from him, and then came the work of separating it from red and white cells and plasma and... whatever he was turning into.

They used cloned human tissue, when she could. Skin, hair, saliva, and even bone. A slow trickle of funding and equipment came in, allowing her to delve deeper into the nature of his regenerative cells. But he was the source; nothing was better than what he could produce.

"Moira, did you see what I was able to replicate over here?" Angela spoke, drawing his attention over to her and her cloned samples. "I really think we're onto something with the latest batch."

Moira glanced at her over the rim of her glasses; she'd forgotten her contact lenses again. Though she didn't say anything, she watched Angela carefully, a familiar, hungry expression in her eyes.

"So am I..." he sounded hoarse to his own ears. "Is that it? Am I better? The cancer is gone?"

Moira's mismatched eyes darted back to him. "You're regenerating at the molecular level. Cancer is the least of your worries."

"We've diverted quite a bit from attempting a cure, in any case." Angela couldn't help but chime in, sounding unusually cheery. She walked past them, arms laden with paperwork, casting them both a knowing look. "All right. Which one of you is getting pen duty tonight?"

"I'll do it," Gabriel said, grimacing at the miles of red tape sure to tangle them up.

Ziegler shot him one of those million-dollar smiles. It was no wonder they had her on so many of the recruitment posters; she and Reinhardt might be able to make it as models, if this whole Overwatch thing didn't work out.

He was beyond grateful that she and Moira set aside their difference to work on him, but when she slid the huge stack of papers in front of him, he wondered if crawling into the grave wasn't a better alternative. Being stuck with the busywork was his punishment for keeping this from her, or so she said. Either way, Angela had glared the two of them down until they agreed to having her supervise future experimentation.

"Can you figure out why I'm doing the gross sucky thing yet?" he grumbled as Angela returned to her station, humming under her breath.

"No," Moira answered. "But I am envious to say the least."

From the far corner of the lab, he heard Angela shout. "Envious? Moira, the last time he touched you, you nearly had a heart attack!"

Gabriel winced, crossing his arms tighter. It was true his regenerative properties were not entirely self-fulfilled.

(He kept comparing it to being a vampire, much to Moira's chagrin.)

Standing a certain distance away, Moira lifted one hand towards him, palm out and grasping. A dark focus entered her gaze as she framed him in the v between her fingers. "It just needs a little more work," she said. "Think about it, you two. A little more finesse, a little more control, and this is a new brand of nonlethal force. Imagine apprehending your enemy with merely a touch."

"Disastrous, if it gets in the wrong hands."

Moira's hand dropped and she rolled her eyes, turning to Angela. "And the same could be said of that peashooter on your hip." She pointed to Angela's sidearm, just visible every time Angela's lab coat opened a little too wide. "We can't be afraid of what evil people will do with what we make; we can't let the theoretical outweigh reality."

"I..." Angela let out a defeated sigh before giving her ex-wife the side-eye. "All right, Moira, you've been snapping at me all evening. What's eating you and what can I do to get you to stop?"

Moira tensed up, then stalked over to Angela with purpose. Grabbing her by the shoulder, she tugged her so they were standing face to face and then undid Angela's tie. "You _know_ sloppy Windsor knots put me on edge," she said, quickly redoing it, and tightening it around her neck.

The shorter woman allowed Moira to work, staring at Gabriel over her shoulder as if seeking a kindred spirit. Gabriel just shrugged in response; it was one of Moira's many quirks.

Down here, with Angela in and out of the labs as she pleased, there was no way to keep him and Moira a secret.

Not when, after one afternoon, Angela's nostrils flared.

"Wearing a new scent today, Commander?" she said with a little smirk. He had just stared at her, not sure if he was reading too much into things until he later found Moira's cologne on his sink, and remembered they were sharing a bottle. Angela always had a way of sniffing out the truth, of course, but he hardly expected it to happen so literally.

It disquited him, but at the same time it made sense. Of course Angela would know what Moira smelled like. Of course she'd see the way Moira looked at him, when she thought he wasn't looking. Just like he caught Moira staring at the young doctor with those soft eyes, unbearably fond, unutterably sad.

They both bid Angela good night, lingering in the labs together unsubtly. For alone time, yes, but also to conduct a few experiments they knew Angela was uncomfortable with. Angela waved and smiled, but the moment she was out of eyeshot she sent Gabriel a text message.

[ 012]: If tomorrow I find either of you passed out in the lab from blood loss, I quit.

[ 44]: That's what you said last time :)

[ 012]: I mean it this time! :(

[ 012]: Despite whatever Moira thinks, I do still care for her safety.

[ 44]: And?

[ 012]: And if you hurt her, you'll have a very angry Swiss doctor on your doorstep.

[ 44]: I'm shaking in my boots. 3

"Do you think with the— well, with the regen stuff, I'm not properly cured, am I?" Gabriel looked up from his online conversation to the one he was having in real life. Moira was quiet, but he'd long since learned to translate all her particular brands of silence. Right now she was waiting for him to gather his thoughts and explain himself better. "It's like a little tango, one step forward one step back."

Moira shrugged. "Angela in particular would be loathe to say this, but a good amount of medicine is no different from what Lindholm does in his labs."

 _This is working, we have no idea why, but it's working, try not to fuck it up._

Moira outfitted him with the new gauntlets. A pet project, a collaboration between the Lindholms, Angela, and herself. It redirected all his chaotic energy to just his hands. Still, Moira was careful not to touch his skin; they all were, these days. The gauntlets only did so much to help him maintain control.

The first time it happened— when he absorbed the life from someone— they'd put him in quarantine for three days.

He expected Moira to raise hell and break him out, even if it meant tearing down the place with her own two hands. Either her, or Jesse. He hadn't anticipated Ziegler right at her side, furiously giving Jack the tongue-lashing of his life as they escorted Gabriel to the isolated Blackwatch labs.

("He's sick, Jack! He needs treatment, not to be locked up like, like, like an _animal_ , I can't even believe you would—")

The memory of their stalwart leader completely crumpling under the force of her ire still brought a smile to his face.

"We'll get there eventually," Moira said, and led him to the rabbit hutch. He'd progressed past plants in a matter of weeks, but animals were still proving... Problematic.

"Bonita is getting tired of me, I think." Gabriel reached into the pen to stroke one of the rabbits. She twitched, hopping away from him, but he quickly had her in his arms. A few more strokes over her head and she was limp, her breathing shallow and quick.

"Good thing we have no shortage of test subjects," Moira said.

"Yep. And if the bunnies are too much we can try the dogs again." The dogs, for whatever reason, succumbed less easily.

Moira's pause was heavy. "And me. You can touch me whenever you want."

They locked eyes over the table.

He broke first, focusing on the rabbit in his arms. "Well, I don't want to."

With a sad smile, he kissed the top of Bonita's head and set her back in the pen. She wobbled around on unsteady feet. A marked improvement from when the first few had just keeled over and died, but still not ideal.

"I hate the waste of it," he said. "Like when I'm feeling fine? All the energy just goes nowhere."

"Perhaps we could fashion some sort of holding tank," Moira said, taking notes as Bonita slowly recovered. "A reservoir."

"I appreciate that, but the idea of lugging around extra equipment just for that is... uh..." he trailed off.

"Be honest, Gabriel."

"It's shit. I'm not carting a backpack around wherever I go."

"Noted."

Still, he saw her sketch something onto the margins of one of her papers, muttering about Chrohn's disease and colostomy bags and how he should be grateful and lots of people used devices to manage _their_ illnesses, and weird gas monster illnesses were no exception. To be honest he tuned most of it out, because most of it flew right over his head.

He watched her sketch instead, seeing something very much like a bulky canister backpack take shape. Linked to the gauntlets that helped him funnel the effect from all over his body to just his hands, it might also have an interface with a Valkyrie suit to control nanobot streams.

"Take life from one person, give it to another." She clicked her pen. "Absolutely blasphemous. But that's the point of our research, isn't it? We correct God's mistakes and replace them with a few of our own."

Statements like that always troubled him. Moira had a habit of phrasing things... not incorrectly, but without any varnish.

When Jack found out the truth about Gabriel, he wanted to hear who else knew. Moira's name surprised him. The recruit that Gabriel had begged to allow one more chance, after a series of anonymous papers were traced back to her, to Overwatch. Papers and research with dangerous ideas.

The disgrace had been inescapable.

("Her? Why her?")

Why her, indeed?

The answer was the same, Gabriel thought, as he studied Moira deep in her research. Because she was brilliant. Because she was fearless. Because she owned her failure instead of cowering in the face of opposition. That was the pure essence of Overwatch.

Why was he the only one who seemed to see it?

Gabriel's communicator pinged again, with one last goodnight message from Angela, urging him to sleep at a reasonable hour.

Well. Maybe he wasn't the _only_ one who saw it.

Pocketing the device and trying not to feel jealous, he just stayed and watched Moira some more. In his opinion she was perfect like this, so deep in her own thoughts that nothing else existed to her, not even him. When her back was turned, he moved noiselessly up to her— feet lifting entirely off the floor, a fit of degeneration making him quiet as a ghost.

"Moira."

He said it lower than he meant to, rougher than he meant to. The shudder that ran down her spine was visible, this close. Revulsion? Excitement? He couldn't tell, even if he saw he face he might not know.

She kept her back turned, a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. Dozens of other sketches littered the page, overtaking her notes on his cellular structure. Moira clicked the pen anxiously, head slightly tilted to let him know she was listening.

The only way they could touch was through promises. His hands hovered just over her waist, just close enough to feel his body heat.

Gabriel leaned closer, his breath on her ear.

"I want to touch you, Moira."

Her grip on the clipboard turned white-knuckled. Angrily, she set it aside and turned to face him, whipping her glasses off. "What did I tell you about being a fucking _tease_ , Reyes? You—"

She didn't even let herself finish, grabbing him by the ears and kissing him hard. Gabriel returned it as best as he could, wishing he could run his clawed hands down her lean frame. Instead he forced his hands into fists, trembling with the effort of keeping still as Moira pressed her body up against his. Her thigh twisted between his legs, and that simple pressure made him ache, remembering how soft she was underneath all her condescension, her prickly nature.

All too soon they parted, and she was breathing heavily and shaking, but not for any good reasons.

She took a faltering step back, rubbing her forehead and wincing. "You made me do that. You know I can't think straight when you use that voice on me." When he looked a little too gleeful at her statement, she shot him a sharp glare. "No jokes about us not being straight!"

Gabriel pressed his lips together very, very thin, eyes wide with innocence.

"I do want to touch you though," he admitted with a grumble. They stood side by side again, her hand passing over his occasionally. Just close and quick enough to feel the breeze of it, to feel her warmth. "I felt bad for saying otherwise. You know I want to touch you."

"I know." She stared at her office, deep in thought. "...Maybe if we used a dental dam, or a condom—"

"To kiss?"

"It's worth a shot, isn't it?"

"Moira, Moira, Moira." He shook his head. "And I thought _I_ was thirsty."

(But science demanded rigorous studies.)

(The latex barrier did help mitigate the effects slightly, but not enough to be a viable option for very long.)

* * *

It hurt terribly.

Moira had worked to save him, and the end result was his lifespan extended past their wildest dreams— and no hope in sight of them being able to share it together in a way that didn't cause either of them pain. They slept in the same bed a few times, pillows packed between them, but Gabriel couldn't rest easy knowing his presence was uncontrolled at night.

Dangerous. That's what he was. That's what Jack saw every time his old friend looked at him.

Jack, god, Jack hurt worst of all. When had they become so different? When had he stopped seeing him as a brother in arms? As an ex-lover? Moira and Angela seemed to get along well enough. Why couldn't they be like that?

Moira was quick to shut it down.

"Angela and I got divorced for a reason," Moira said. "We're fond of each other, but only if we aren't stuck in the same room for too long."

 _You still love her though,_ he thought, but didn't dare say. It was obvious to him that whatever split them apart hadn't been entirely resolved

He thought about that every time he was with Jack. The only time they could be together alone without it dissolving into an argument was when they were on the training field. Gabriel needed something to help him refocus, so he asked the only other SEP victim for a little tough love.

Jack ran him through a tireless regime, sharpening him back to the days when they were young recruits together. Gabriel couldn't say if it was the structure or the physical conditioning that did it, but it definitely helped keep him in one piece. He told Jack as much, during a break.

The water bottle felt ice cold when Jack pressed it to his forehead, though Gabriel knew the reality was he was just boiling up in here. He accepted it gratefully, chugging it down in two huge gulps.

"If you want," Jack said, "If you can get it under control, we can let you back out on field missions."

A tempting offer— and Jack's attempt at a truce. Going out into the front lines again was what Jack wanted, more than anything he was doing these days. Offering it to Gabriel was his idea of a gift, probably.

"I'll see what I can do," Gabriel responded.

* * *

Four new candidates were selected for the trail phase. That much Gabriel knew. Two men, two women. Two healthy, two not. Yet when he looked over their paperwork, scanning their histories and their records as ex-Overwatch, he could only find three.

And he kicked himself, later. For not putting two and two together. For not doing what he always did, and stitch together a full picture from the clues left behind. That was his whole job, his whole purpose for existing, but he didn't know Moira was the second woman until it was too late.

"The scientist in charge can't use herself as a test subject in her own experiment, Moira!"

"Don't yell at me," Moira responded. "Either lower your voice and speak rationally or leave me alone."

In the training area, Moira readjusted her version of the gauntlets. Two-point-oh. They were always seeking to refine his ability to drain the target and leave them immobile. All in all, it was very good for Moira, who wanted to go on more field missions, but was a notoriously terrible shot.

The result of her mandatory target practice was twitching nearby, a little bot with a scattering of holes piercing through its chest, head, and legs. Nowhere consistent; the grouping was honestly embarrassing.

He gripped a hand over the railing, right next to where she was casually reclined. "This isn't right," he said in a low hiss.

Moira blinked, slowly. As ever, she was difficult to read, if not impossible. And while he'd grown practiced at deciphering her silences, this one said nothing at all.

When the next round of bots rolled past, she turned from him and extended out one hand. A blast of energy shot forth, flickering green and purple like an ugly bruise. It clattered, bouncing from bot to bot until they were lying in a smoking heap.

"Being put in charge made you bad at following orders, Reyes," she said. She held her right hand at an angle, elbow bent so that her palm faced the sky. Roiling, chaotic energy still emitted from the metal disc on her palm. She braced her right arm with her left hand, trying to keep it steady as she recovered. "You lowered your volume but I'm still not seeing any rationality from you."

"You got your way," he said, a little desperately. "You had all the test subjects you could need."

So why? _Why_?

"Yes, a whole new batch of lab rats. And so I'll sit back and let someone else take all the risks. Would that have been more palatable to you?" Moira made a fist, finally extinguishing the flames. "I was curious and I wanted an answer. Now I'm enjoying the fruits of my labor. And that angers you, for some reason."

"No!" Her eyes swiveled to him, once, in warning, and he quickly lowered his voice again. "I don't know, I..." His jaw clicked shut, working furiously. "I... I don't know why I'm mad," he had to admit, but only because there was no way he could pick just _one_ excuse.

"Then I advise you to sort that out on your own time," Moira said sharply, turning those burning eyes on him. "Instead of foisting the job on me."

First and foremost he was terrified, but he couldn't admit that. It would be pathetic to admit that now, and he didn't think she'd believe him, anyway. Not when there were a million other reasons he was turning black and sulfurous as they spoke. Not when his mind kept doing that thing it did, gathering all the details and leaping to a conclusion so terrible he couldn't bear to dwell on it.

 _Was it all on purpose? To get this?_ His eyes swept down to her apparatus, jutting from the harness on her back. _A new toy? Something to surpass the SEP, something to have her name on? Was I wrong, and everyone else was right about her?_

Why else hadn't she told him? Because she knew he would object. So then, was this her going behind his back, or her forging ahead with a plan that they both knew she wouldn't be dissuaded from?

"The risk isn't entirely mitigated," she said at last. "I am still very much in danger by doing this, Gabriel. It isn't all fun and games."

 _I know,_ he wanted to say. I _know!_

With a low exhale, another burst of jagged flames erupted from her palm. Bright enough to cast a shadow on her face, cut harsh lines on her as she grit her teeth in pain. The next row of bots weren't smacked so much as sliced in half, a burst of energy stretching from her palm to them like a flaming sword. This time it fizzled out on its own, but no matter how hard she tried, Moira couldn't summon another one.

"Moira—"

She cut him off. "I don't feel the need to explain myself further to you."

The stiff set of her shoulders let him know this conversation was over. And if he pressed her for more, boy, would he get more. Just nothing he actually wanted.

With shaking hands, he double checked the fastens on his leather gloves before he left the training field, pulling his hood up and being careful not to bump into anyone on his way out.

* * *

A gym on the other side of the Gibraltar facility became his refuge in the months to come. McCree and Shimada both wanted to help him. Much like training and drilling with Jack again gave him focus, they figured some controlled physical contact with other humans would give him control.

"Any helpful advice?" Gabriel dryly asked Shimada as McCree stood on the other side of the boxing ring, stretching.

"My Dragonblade is not passive. It requires will to draw it forth." One metal finger gleamed in the lamplight, pointing straight at Gabriel. "Your battle lies in keeping your power _contained_."

Gabriel uncertainly knocked his gloves together, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "So that's why I'm smacking Jesse," he said, sounding uncertain.

"That's why you're smacking Jesse," McCree agreed, and went in for a roundhouse. Gabriel took a few steps back, easily darting out of range.

In a sense it was logical to try doing this with McCree. The man was close to him as Jack was, back in the day. He didn't want to hurt him. Gabriel would try hard to keep his vampire bullshit from affecting him, even in the heat of a fight.

 _But I didn't want to hurt Moira, either, and look how well that turned out._

He thought about all she'd done for him, and how at the first chance he got, he assumed the worst of her. Just like everyone else had done. He thought about her grabbing him and kissing him, heedless of the danger. Her thigh between his legs.

McCree socked him good, catching him on the ribs. But it left him wide open. Until that moment, Gabriel had just been ducking and dodging, reluctant to make contact and drain the life out of him. Growling in pain, Gabriel instinctively swung in and took advantage of that moment of vulnerability, pouncing and connecting his fist with Jesse's face.

The younger man had been hurt worse than that and bounced back before. But not just then. He stumbled, knees shaking as he tried to get back into a guarded position. "Oh, fuck," McCree wheezed. "Fuck, fuck. Commander, that shit damn near knocked my soul clean out my body."

"Control yourself, Commander," Genji added sternly. "Your power is formidable, but you must be stronger than it."

"I'm trying," Gabriel said. "C'mon, Jesse. Don't leave yourself wide open next time and I won't feel the need to teach you a lesson."

McCree was out for the count, though. He collapsed onto his rear end, breathing heavily with one hand over his chest. "That's terrifyin'," he said, rubbing circles over his heart. "Man, you've got somethin' special goin' on."

"Yeah," Gabriel said, "I feel real special."

* * *

It worked.

Perhaps it was the fact that he'd been temporarily removed from his administrative duties, given an extended sick leave. Maybe it was the daily time with Jack started feeling less forced and more natural. Maybe it was Angela monitoring him daily, giving him updates on the other candidates. Maybe it was Ana, blustering through his self-imposed isolation and forcing him to remember who his friends were, his family, and that they were all here to support him.

Maybe it was training with Shimada and McCree in the evenings, whittling his control so that he didn't mindlessly grab anything alive around him and suck it dry.

Maybe it was a miracle.

Still, he crawled into bed every night feeling like he was about to fall apart. Like some fell creature, he phased with the moon, and on the darkest nights the pain was at its worst. That was when he couldn't control his shape, and his body leaked out of itself, roiling gas and blood so dark it could have been ink.

When the pain was that bad his thumb hovered over the names on his communicator. Who could he call? All of them, the people who loved him, would have come in an instant. But the only person he wanted to see was Moira.

Was she okay? Was she in pain too? Was there anything he could do for her?

He didn't know how to ask.

So he knocked on her door the next night, when he wasn't wracked with agony.

Leaning on the frame, he tapped his fingers against the steel, waiting for the door to slide open. It wasn't that late, she couldn't be asleep. Maybe she saw who was on the other side and was ignoring him. Maybe she was in her lab, planning to curl up in that little cot in the office, the one they fucked on whenever they got the chance, before his pale hands started choking the life out of her.

The door slid open, Moira dour and unimpressed already. "Is something the matter, Gabriel?"

He was taken aback by the sight of her. Moira had always been attractive, but something about her now seemed... fuller. She filled that oxford shirt better, shoulders just a little more broad.

For a moment he just stared.

"Commander?" Her lips tensed.

Oh.

Clearing his throat, he stood up straight, removing his hand from outside the door frame, bringing it into view. He had a single rose, pink. He couldn't get ahold of any red ones.

"I uh, I wanted to see you," he said. "And ask how you were doing."

"I'm fine. A little sore from training." Maybe that's why she seemed bigger; the other field agents must be putting her through the wringer. "Are you sure there isn't anything you need?"

 _People only come to me when they need something,_ she had said in the past, and it hovered over him now.

Suddenly, she honed in on the flower in his hand. "Where did you get that?" she asked, sharply.

"Huh? I just got it," he said. "You know. Around."

The seconds ticked by, Moira staring hard at him.

"I'm going to ask you to think very carefully about that answer," she said, and in an instant, Gabriel understood.

He slapped a palm over his face. "I... I got it from Angela," he said, with dawning despair. The young doctor had a little garden in her balcony, and offered him the flower in consolation when he came to her, spilling his guts. She'd been wry, mostly. But also she'd encouraged Gabriel to seek Moira out, to talk through their problems. "How the hell did you kn— you're her ex-wife, right, okay."

How about he just went back to his room and muzzled himself?

Sighing, Moira nodded him inside. "I hate roses," she said, "She always forgot. You, at least, have an excuse."

In her small kitchenette area, Moira carefully set the rose in a tall glass of water. Her long fingers braced over the stem, making sure it wouldn't topple over before letting it go. "How is your pain?" she asked, businesslike and straight to the point. "I've been getting awful pain every time I try to shadow step."

He found himself grateful for it. With his hands deep in his hoodie pocket, he blinked curiously at her. "You can do that too?" None of the other candidates could, as far as he knew. "...Also, shadow step? Moira, that sounds like something out of an anime."

"Do _you_ have a better term for what we can do?"

"I dunno. Ghost form? Stealth mode?"

" _That_ sounds like something from a video game." Moira kept a careful distance from him, her fingers occasionally reaching out to brush against the rose. "None of the others have gotten close, so they don't call it anything at all," she said, unable to help but shoot a proud smirk at him.

It prompted him to grin back, some of the tension loosening in his shoulders. Then he glanced down, noticed her rubbing her right wrist.

"Is that where it hurts?" he asked, reaching out without thinking.

Moira flinched away.

Frozen with a hand still extended towards her, Gabriel struggled with what to feel. Of course she didn't want him to touch her, as far as she knew he was still going to hurt her. And they hadn't spoken since that spat on the training field; he wasn't even sure they were still technically together. Judging by her reaction, they were not.

Then she huffed. "If I show you this, you have to promise not to overreact."

She watched him intensely, until he realize she really was waiting on his word. "OK. I promise."

Brisk and efficient, she rolled her right sleeve all the way up to her elbow, displaying her arm to Gabriel. He stepped closer, careful not to touch her as he inspected the damage. Moria's skin, always pale with fine, powder-blue veins, was turning grey. He'd seen corpses in every stage of necrotic decay; if he didn't know any better, he'd say she was several weeks along.

 _Why are you doing this to yourself?!_ He wanted to scream, grab her and shake her. _I told you this would be a bad idea, I told you not to to this, I told you why didn't you listen, I_ _ **ordered**_ _you—_

"Why—" he started, then remembered his promise. "Is that what hurts?" he asked instead, gentler, and took her wrist in his hand. There was no sharp jump of pain, no twisting, sucking force.

"Mhm." Moira's hand twitched, purple veins shimmering right under her skin. "It's... it's doing the same thing you were," she said. "Not all the time. Just when I'm angry."

He touched higher, rolling his thumb over track marks. Fresh. None of the others candidates were doing anything, except the occasional blood draw. "Giving yourself an extra boost?" he wondered. Gabriel promised not to make a scene, he never said he wouldn't be bitter. It didn't escape Moira's notice, and she pulled her hand away, holding it to her chest defensively.

"We can't be afraid, Gabriel," was all she said, at first.

Bold, fearless. Shameless. Unrelenting. The things he loved about her were causing her to unravel before his eyes, and he wasn't sure there was anything he could do.

"I don't know what you think of me... what you must assume. That I enjoy this, therefore my intentions were malicious." For once, she seemed like she couldn't bear his gaze. Her eyes focused elsewhere, the floor, the top of her boots. Anywhere but him. "From day one I have been as transparent as possible with you. I'll go all the way, follow this to its logical end, or not at all."

"All the way, huh." He wondered if she realized he had touched her without repercussion, or if she thought her sickly hand somehow nullified his. "Moira... why are you doing this?"

"To gather more data," she said, as if it were obvious. "And..." Her left hand crossed her chest to rub at her exposed right arm. "How else am I supposed to know what this feels like? I'm the one doing this to people. I need to experience it all, or my knowledge of my own work will be incomplete."

Moira paused.

"And I think you are perfect," she said, quietly. "Even this part. I am envious, Gabriel. I should have been forthright about it; in that sense you were correct to mistrust me."

There weren't too many ways to respond to that. It was so like Moira to make him feel like a lab rat and the most important man in the world in the same breath. The oddest love confession he'd ever heard.

"You," he said, mouth dry as he approached her in two quick steps. "You're an idiot."

"Smarter than you." Her lips twisted in another smirk, relentlessly proud, and just a little cruel. Haughty, she lifted her chin up, standing taller than ever. "That, at least, I do not envy."

Gabriel's hands hovered over her shoulders, just a centimeter shy of touching. "I think I can touch you," he said, breath sharpening when Moira started toying with the strings of his hoodie. "I can touch other people, the life drain only happens when I'm fighting or firing a weapon, but I haven't, uh—"

"Tested your control during intimacy?" she guessed.

"Yeah," he said. "That."

"Should I go cut up a condom, then?" Her eyes sparkled. "Purely for scientific research, of course."

"I think we can kiss without it," Gabriel said. Based on their previous 'experiments' they knew that a latex barrier— or leather, more readily available— mitigated the effects of his life drain. But he didn't want to sound too eager. Thrusting this information on her and expect her to immediately trust him wasn't even on his radar. "I mean, just one kiss should be fine."

She broke the standstill first, running a nail up along the jumping vein in his neck. Her eyes followed the red trail she left in its wake, quietly fascinated. "I didn't mean for kissing, Gabriel."

 _We still need to be careful,_ he said, or tried to say, but Moira's lips were over his. Electricity raced down his spine, such a simple touch more than he could bear after so long with nothing but pain.

 _Just one kiss, then,_ he was going to say next. He could cede ground. He could give Moira some space. But then her tongue was chasing the mark her nails had left, and then she pushed him up against the wall as she worked his hoodie zipper down. Moira kissed down his bare chest, one hand cold, the other hot and grasping at his belt buckle.

"Oh, J-Jesus," was what he actually said, gasping as she pressed a kiss against his hard shaft, tongue snaking out to taste clear white precome beading up on the tip. This wasn't what he came here to do, he wanted to make sure she was okay, if she needed anything that he could provide.

Well, maybe she needed this.

They moved to her bedroom, kissing feverishly and stripping each other in between soft, gentle strokes. As gently as he could bear.

"If there's anything I can—"

"Get on the bed," she ordered, her breath hot on his lips.

The bedside table produced two condoms, one which rested nearby and one that she cut up as promised.

If she wanted an apology out of him, she didn't make it clear. But he liked to think that she got her satisfaction from his mouth anyway. Gabriel laid over Moira, her legs hooked up over his shoulders, her knees pressed almost to her chest. He licked her entrance, tongue straining against the thin latex barrier. Slick with lube, the condom pressed close against her asshole, and he hummed in approval to feel her getting loose, relaxed as he stroked her with the flat of his tongue.

A red flush covered her neck to chest again, but only one shoulder turned red. Her right arm remained cold and eerie-gray— if anything turning almost purple, the veins there throbbing out of sync with the rest of her pulse. But he didn't pay attention to that, just the cool sensation of her nails running through his hair, petting him, urging him on.

Moira came with a hiss. He coaxed it out of her with his fingers stroking her clit, the added stimulation too much for her to handle. Clutching onto his head with both hands, she gasped and gulped for air, quiet but intense.

After a murmured request, he pulled the makeshift dam away to touch her asshole directly. She flopped one hand to the side, searching for the bottle of lube, but he already had it ready. Pouring it over her, Gabriel worked a finger inside her, and then two. She watched him breathlessly, toying with her wet clit as he stretched her out.

"It doesn't hurt?" he checked, still going slow. She just shook her head, hips twitching greedily.

Moira decided when she'd had enough of that, pushing him off of her and onto his back. She rolled the condom on, stroking him with a mix of more lube and her own come, and then sank onto him, inch by inch.

Buried up to the hilt, she paused with their hips flushed together. Gabriel sat up, one arm locked tight around her torso and the other bracing himself against the mattress. Quiet, hushed breathing filled the scant space between them, nothing else but skin and come and sweat and lube.

It was hard to believe just a few moments ago he'd been nervous. How to have sex again after so much time apart? How to negotiate all those fine details— what if he couldn't please her anymore?

They moved together, slowly. She controlled the pace, the deepness of every thrust. That was fine by him; he'd hurt partners by accident before with his strength, and that was before any of the current madness that surrounded him.

Moira said something, too soft to hear. Following it up with a kiss, she kept their mouths together as she rode him, breath mingling with his.

"Can you come again for me?" he asked in a reverent whisper, stroking down her back. Soft skin, and that one rough patch of scar tissue. "One more time. Tell me what you need me to do."

She did, changing the angle slightly to give him room to thrust upward. Moira stroked his dark hair, whispering into his ear, kissing him fondly on the rough stubble on his cheek. Pulling her onto him every time he arched up, Gabriel came the moment he heard her cry out. Pulse after pulse, she came wrapped around him, and he could feel her get wet even through the haze of bliss clouding through his mind.

Gabriel kept talking to her through it all, a hushed exchange, a slew of promises, sweet words and snarling little reminders of who she was, who she belonged to.

Moira was Blackwatch, to her core. She was his— they were all his. No one knew them like he did, and that's how he wanted to keep it. A mystery, a safe haven, no red tape, no oversight. His and his alone.

And so, when he died, there was no one left to defend them.


	3. Chapter 3

He learned to enjoy rats.

What was left of Gabriel Reyes longed for a war that would end him. He knew he was a failed half-step to the future; he knew that hunger, pain, injury, death, would not end him. Nothing would, short of nuclear apocalypse, and even that was just an educated guess.

And nothing sated the hunger.

Sitting in the hull of the drop ship, with the doors open, he waited. It looked like shelter to anything unwary; it (his body, him) smelled good ( _goooooood_ ) to the corpse-eaters and the bottom feeders. Once, more than once, a wolf or a bear came across his path hesitantly, spotting the ravens and the carrion birds circling above.

Those were the best times. They put up more of a fight.

He held the fort, waiting for the others to arrive. Either he or Widowmaker were ideal for the job; they could shut down for days, weeks at a time. Immobile and immortal, like something crocodilian that hadn't changed for millions of years, merely became perfect versions of themselves.

Sitting with the cargo door open, he waited in the freezing cold. For days. A common brown rat found the lure of shelter irresistible. The rat sniffed his hand curiously, took a bite, found his corpse unpalatable, and then left him alone for the remainder of his stay.

When Sombra returned to the ship in shivering layers of fur and leather, she climbed in, kicked the old engine to life, and turned on the heat.

"You good, jefe?" Sombra said over the comm system.

He rattled to life, a shuddering clatter of bone and meat. Ink poured into him, making him solid, and Gabriel slowly rose to his feet. In the darkness he heard the hum of electricity, and two heartbeats. Sombra in the cockpit and the little brown rat, nestled somewhere dark and warm.

 _One for the road._

Gabriel looked up at the speaker. "Yes."

"I always wonder if you're gonna wake up, every time you do that."

"Tell me where Lacroix is," he said instead of responding to that.

"We had to split up in St. Petersburg." Sombra hissed something angrily in Spanish that he only half-understood. "We got the job done, though. Petrikov ain't gonna bother us no more. We headed to Venice next?"

"No," he said. "Oasis."

Sombra cheered up at the thought of warmth, and desert. A jewel of a city. "Nice! What for?"

There was no pleasure in hunting when he knew precisely where his prey was. But Gabriel stalked nonetheless, stopping right in front of the seat where the rat was hiding. The plane took off with a shudder of engine and belching fire, humming up into the air and flying away.

He lunged forward with one hand. Slinking through the crevices, his hand reformed as a claw, snagging the rat right by its tail. The thing screamed as he dragged it out, let it dangle in the air. Even with the power on, the ship was still so cold that every bleeding scrape on the animal steamed with heat. Billowing like a forge, all of it surging towards him.

He made a fist, crushing the small body until blood dripped down his arm. Every inch of him soaked it up, trembling, his chest lurching heavily with staggered breaths.

 _I will make a war,_ he thought, _and people always say their conflict will be the one to end all wars, but mine will be the one to change all wars, to change all of humanity, to make us stronger, what we could be instead of what we are, to make us perfect._

When Gabriel opened his fist there was nothing except dried flesh in his hand, mummified and tattered leather. The bones turned into dust, draining down between the gaps in his fingers.

"I need to pay a visit to a friend."

Silvery and powder-fine, he watched the dust slip away in a scant breeze.

And Gabriel waited.

.

* * *

.

He didn't get another chance to eat until they found O'Deorain's offices. Lingering on a nearby rooftop, they lurked like gargoyles. Gabriel still as stone, and Sombra hunched over the screen that lit her from a hundred different angles, code swarming and scrolling so fast it reflected in the black of her eyes.

He was hungry. He was always hungry.

( _Stop playing with your food,_ Sombra told him more than once, when she could no longer bear the screams.)

"I gotta know," Sombra asked without tearing her eyes from the screen. "Is this a friend, or something else?"

Gabriel's mask turned towards her, the hollow eyes unfeeling and unexpressive. "What else would she be?"

"Oh, I don't know." Sombra flicked the screen off with a wiping motion, dismissing it for now so she could stand up straight. "Hacking security systems, all the cams, disabling bodyguard drones... doesn't seem very friendly."

"We're not in a business where we can easily trust our friends." This was obvious. She knew this already. What was she trying to get him to say? "It's a business transaction, not tea."

"Shame. I brought snacks, if that were the case."

From her belt pouch, she produced a crinkling paper bag. Gabriel could feel heat radiating off of it, and the thick scent of oil lingered in the air. "...What is that?"

"They're like donuts," she said. "Fried dough and sugar. Want one?"

Gabriel frowned under the mask. "When did you find time to sneak off and grab those? And from where?"

"It doesn't matter where I got 'em." Sombra waved the little bag under his face. "What matters is if you're gonna eat one."

Of course with Sombra there were always layers to every interaction. She was offering him something warm and soft, she was offering him kindness and humanity to see if he still remembered it, or appreciated it, or wanted it. She was offering him sustenance because her curiosity demanded to be satiated: could he eat food? Did he need food? Did he trust her enough to take something from her? Was poison a concern for him?

She was being deliberately casual and evoking something innocent and childish, sweet street treats, to see what buttons that might push. To paint herself as harmless when she was decidedly the most dangerous person he worked with. She even dared to flirt with him now and again, to see if there was a man underneath it all, to see if she could rouse his cold blood.

"I'm not hungry," he said.

"We don't eat donuts because we're hungry, Gabe. We eat them because they're donuts. Do you want a donut?"

He took the donut.

The bottom half of Gabriel's mask hinged up like an owl beak, letting him chew in silence as he gathered his thoughts. Sombra polished off the rest of the bag herself, licking her fingers clean as she stared down at O'Deorain's offices.

The paper crinkled in her hand before she tossed it aside. "Okay, the last guard shift ended. You want in, you got a two hour window." She dared again to touch him, running her hand over his shoulder. "Don't put my hard work to waste, jefe."

Gabriel nodded, and then sunk down into the earth. He raced through the streets, streams of ink squirming into the room and coating the walls in shadow. He poured out of the vents, slipping through the cracks.

He could hear the sound of a pen, scratching against paper.

Moira was sketching. The materials were nicer but she was sketching, again, had a shelf behind her filled with similar notebooks to the one on her desk. What lay inside? What was between those pages?

Ten years, and she was still here, trying to get the images in her head out into the world. Drawings of angel wings and halos, weaving ladders, building blocks of life.

("You love her." He wanted to be calm about this. He didn't want to sound jealous even though he was. He didn't want Moira to know it hurt him. He didn't want to hurt her. "You still love her."

"Is it so hard to believe I love you just as much?"

Something made her laugh.

"What?"

"I'm weak for angels," she said.)

The room darkened.

The sound of the pen stopped.

And Gabriel rose up from the shadows, forming into solid shape before her. Sitting at her desk, Moira froze, her expression calm but blank.

For so long he thought of this moment. If he would ever dare show his face before her again.

Long ago he swore he would not, but that was before he became a leader of Talon.

Now he was here, and in that silence he heard her heartbeat as if from far away. It was stronger than it had ever been. Moira scanned him once, chest huffing with a sigh.

("Gabriel, blow your horn.")

"Whoever built you made a real dog's breakfast of it," Moira greeted him after ten years of silence.

Moira rolled her eyes with great exaggeration, and Gabriel was left dumbstruck.

"Who holds your leash, hmmm?" she asked, blue eye flickering and dismissive, red eye burning with fury. "What are they hoping to do? Punish me for my sins? Or remind me that my old research is flawed?" She sat back in her chair, idly stroking her damaged right hand. " _Clearly_ I'm aware."

She didn't recognize him.

Of course she wouldn't.

What about him was the same? Not his face, that was for sure. Nothing except the guns strapped to his waist, and even those were his standard issue firearms, leftover from his time with the SEP. They were his, sure, carved with his killstreak. But did her focused eyes notice that? Did they sweep over him and see nothing familiar in his frame?

Had he changed that much?

She hardly changed at all, he noted. Not a single strand of silver wove through her fiery red hair, but the crows feet on the corner of her eyes had deepened. Faintly, he could see the imprint of grin marks on her cheeks, now drawn tight as Moira glared at him frostily.

"Who built you?" she asked again, this time sharper. She stood up, regal and furious, and affixed a slim metal disk to her right palm. "Answer me."

Somewhere along the way, he found his voice. "Why, Dr. O'Deorain..." He stepped forward, arms open, his growl as teasing and as light as he could make it. "You did, of course."

Face hard, Moira lifted up her right hand and attempted to attack. But all that emitted was a series of sputtering sparks, like a gas stove clicking fruitlessly.

Gabriel tensed up, waiting for it. Preparing himself for the scent of fear to flood the room. For a heartbeat out of control. A part of him was excited for it, to experience Moira like he never could before. To taste it in the air.

"You're not an amateur," she said, looking up at the cameras in her office and finding them disabled. Her security systems were all offline, surely she had to know by this point. Then and only then did she hone in on the guns at his waist. "A ghost, then. Come to haunt me."

Strained silence.

"You must be the reaper," she said at last, and slowly sank back into her seat. Her eyes were wide, but mostly with the shock of recognition, not fear. "Yes, _a chara,_ I've been watching you, too, as you must surely have been watching me. Taking my research and putting it to such violent delights..." she blinked slowly. "You're the one murdering Overwatch agents."

"My reputation precedes me."

Moira nodded. Always fair-skinned, she grew more pale as he approached her desk. Each heavy footstep landed loud as gunfire in the empty office, and Moira refused to make eye contact with him.

Was it his imagination, or was she smaller than he remembered? Perhaps he had forgotten his own shape, made himself something huge and terrifying, bulky like a nightmare. Subtly he shifted to match his memories better, and put sharper focus on how he had been compared to Moira.

"But you have nothing to fear from me, Doctor." He stopped just short of her desk, resting one claw on the polished wood. "We can both admit you were never one of them."

To his surprise, that made her respond. Moira looked up at him, with hurt in her eyes. It was gone in an instant, but he knew her too well to miss it. Moira longed for Overwatch's approval still, to be a part of an organization that never saw her as more than a blemish on their reputation. After all these years, after what they had done to him and to her, after they had thrown him to the wolves and left her to fend for herself.

After everything.

"Minister." Moira's square jaw worked with anger. "You shall address me as _Minister_ O'Deorain."

When he didn't respond, the Minister of Genetics let out a low breath, eyes closing shut as if in concentration. Then she stripped the apparatus from her right arm, folding the cables neatly. Opening her desk drawer, she put it away and retrieved a slim cigar.

Moira lit it with a pop of her sickly right hand. A demonic trick to unwary eyes; Gabriel noticed the glint of sharp steel on her thumb nail, a flint ring encasing her middle finger in a complex array of spirals and geometric patterns. What a showoff. At least some things hadn't changed.

"So you're not here to kill me," she said, opening the drawer again to pull out an ashtray. "This a social visit, Reaper?"

"Not quite. My associates in Talon have a proposal," he began to explain.

But Moira opened the desk drawer one more time, nodding as if she were listening. This time, however, she withdrew a six-shooter gun that looked exactly like Jesse's.

Lifting one lean leg up, Moira kicked the desk over and propelled her chair back, fanning one hand over the hammer and firing all six bullets as fast as she could. Most of them missed. Two struck him. One in the center of his chest (" _Good_ girl!" he had to struggle against crowing in delight. In ten years, finally, she had learned to aim for the center of mass.) And one ripped through his arm, tearing the black fabric of his sleeve apart.

Coiling forward in a mass of smoke, he reappeared in front of her and grabbed her by the wrist, disarming her. The lit cigar lazily drifted smoke into the air, heady and sweet.

"You didn't let me finish," he growled, looming over her until her spine bent back in her attempt to keep away from him.

"Talon," Moira spat in disgust. "What do they want from me? To fix their failed attempt to recreate my work?" Her chin jabbed up, as if pointing at him in accusation.

"What makes you think we need anything from you, Moira?"

She tried to fight him off, bony fingers prying at his fist in her robes. "People only come to me when they _need_ —" She snarled, her steel-coated nailed turning into a claw as she readied to swipe at him.

Gabriel covered his torn bicep with his free hand, trying to stem the bleeding. In order to assess the damage, he ripped the black fabric clean in half, showing skin white as bone.

A staggered, shuddering gasp escaped her, mismatched eyes wavering in horror. Maybe at what she was saying, the connection there, or maybe she was staring at the tattoo on his exposed skin.

And he exploded.

Miles of jawline and fleshy tissue, he rose with Moira in his arms until the tips of his horned skull hit the ceiling eleven feet above them. Like a gas he expanded around them, filling every crook in the splintered wood, wrapping around Moira in something like an embrace but mostly like a mass of grasping hands, touching and pulling and caressing with a hunger that could never be satisfied, licking the fear that rose off her body in waves, sucking it from her flesh with a million mouths.

He kissed her one last time because there was nothing in the world that felt better than her, or smelled half as good as her exposed terror, the sheer frenzied panic of an emotion she was wholly unfamiliar with. Nothing was better than the screams of fear and pained denial that he stripped right out of her lungs. Nothing would ever be this good again, or taste as good as her, and he held her so close he thought he might finally die.

Every inch of him was teeth.

" _Gabriel!_ "

A sharp voice in his ear brought him back down to reality. He only stood seven feet tall but it was enough to let Moira's feet dangle in the air as he held her by the front of her robes, shaking with need.

Sombra spoke again, the comm staticky in his ear. " _If this is how you treat business partners, I'd hate to see how you treat your friends._ "

Moira was gray in his hands, her pulse weak and fluttering. She was drained to the last drop, and couldn't stand on her own when he slowly lowered her to her feet.

So instead Gabriel carried her back to her broken desk. Setting the chair up, he propped Moira's barely conscious body in it as gently as he could.

Moira didn't have enough life left to speak. Hardly had enough left to breathe.

But she never closed her eyes, not once. Through it all she watched him, not a hint of lethargy or confusion clouding that bright gaze. She was afraid, yes. But not of him. Not of death. Moira would have watched as long as she could, he knew, if he had taken her apart piece by piece.

("During the French Revolution," Gabriel said one night in bed, frowning over a trashy scifi novel he was reading, "A scientist named Lavoisier said he would try to keep blinking as long as he could after being guillotined. He kept blinking for fifteen seconds. One last experiment."

"An apocryphal tale," she responded, "But oh, that's how I'd love to go.")

Every screen in the room winked purple and hazy, a sugar skull glowing in the darkness.

"My associate is sending you all the information," Gabriel said, smoothly picking up where he left off. As if nothing had happened. "For once, Moira, this isn't about what someone else can take from you. It's about what _you_ need, that only we can provide."

Drop by drop, he slicked down into the floor, a mix of gas and ink and blood. Nothing except a voice to whisper in her ear.

"I'll see you in Venice, Minister."

.

* * *

.

" _Oye jefe_ ," Sombra said into his ear again, a week later. " _Check it out. No eres el único vampiro aquí esta noche._ "

Gabriel really didn't need her to point out Moira at the table. He was keenly aware of her every time they were in the same room together.

Perhaps out of a sense of mockery, or maybe because she genuinely liked it, she chose to go to the Masquerade as Count Dracula. Fake blood and a painted mouth served as her mask, curling up her cheeks in rows of needle teeth and splattered over her chest and neck.

 _Cheeky._

For her part, she mostly listened in silence. Gabriel didn't worry about what she might hear. If O'Deorain was going to join them, it would be in complete transparency, as his equal. The Minister would not enter Talon as a rank-and-file soldier; she would lead, or she would not join at all.

He made that very clear to the others before he extended the invitation to her.

Of the leaders gathered that night, he found he only truly trusted Akande and Moira. Maximilian had hunger for money at the center of his inhuman, silent heart. And Korpal too eager to sink the roots of Vishkar all across the globe.

But his people, ironically the ones closest to Overwatch, were the ones with real vision.

His people. His people.

Moira said nothing, recorded nothing, took nothering, offered nothing. For now she would watch. For now she would wonder what Talon could offer her that she could not gain through more legitimate means, with her power as Minister guiding the way.

Through it all she watched him intently, though he couldn't fathom what she might be thinking. Perhaps she had not recognized him at all. Maybe she had responded to the sight of his wretched form, to the fact that a bullet to the heart had not stopped him.

Maybe she thought someone had Frankensteined him up purely to torment her.

After the meeting they all vanished. He could have picked any one of them to follow, to learn more about their plans in Venice, to see if there were any hints of treachery.

But he chose her.

Sleeping in her shadows, Gabriel stalked Moira through the streets of Venice. She swept through crowds of revelers, standing head and shoulders above the rest. Past her waiting car, past the doors of her hotel, she paused at the steps of a cathedral. They were both ex-Catholic; it was a habit he understood well.

But she kept going, hopelessly lost and losing momentum. Her body temperature lowered, and she removed a gleaming metal plate from her left eye.

Lurching into an alleyway, she leaned against the narrow walls and gasped for breath, one hand over her heart. It beat out of control as she quietly had a panic attack in the streets of a strange city, breaking down with fear again where no one could see her except the rats and the shadows.

He watched in silence.

.

* * *

.

More than once Gabriel wondered if he had gone mad.

The pain that ravaged him from the inside out would have been enough to break anyone. The years of mindless hatred where he roamed the mountain tops, feeling nothing except hunger that nothing could satisfy. He built up a reputation as he rebuilt himself, piece by piece, into something that was like a man and yet so unholy and so alien he could be called nothing except a monster.

Maybe that was why he went alone to Moira O'Deorain's offices, one month later.

In her office, he slowly reached out, lowering the lights until they were both in the comfort of darkness.

She'd fixed the desk, he noticed.

Waiting for him, she stood up this time, looking around. Sensing his presence, but not knowing where he was yet.

"Gabriel?" she dared to ask into the night, the word caught on the edge of a breathless whisper.

He stood just behind her, the tips of his gauntlets hovering close enough to feel the chill of his body. Close enough to feel her shiver.

"You received my message," she said, and he took it as permission to slowly stroke a hand down her back.

Yes, he had. In glowing green text, _come to me, mo chuisle_ pulsed on his communicator, no foreword and no farewell. Gabriel didn't ask how she'd been able to contact him. He didn't really care. All he knew was that he had to respond. The way blood flowed to the heart, he would return to her. Without question; blood does not ask questions, it only obeys.

"So you did recognize me," he said. "Took you long enough."

"You assumed I wouldn't recognize my own work?" she said, hands pressed together yet hidden in her billowing sleeves. Was she fiddling with her wedding ring? Were her fingers linked together tight enough that white bone shone through the skin of her knuckles? "I thought you a thief, at first. But now that you stand in front of me, I see you are nothing less than my own creation."

Then she turned to face him, seeming to float in her fine Minister robes. Reaching out, Moira's sickly right hand scratched against his bone mask in an unspoken request. The purple veins there throbbed off-beat with the rest of her pulse. Her steel-tipped nails were long, riddled with capillaries, mutated to have nerve endings— too painful to trim, like a cat's.

Gabriel flinched away. The mass of fleshy pulp and ink inside him that served for a heart worked double-time. As always, even now, Moira O'Deorain had a way of tearing uncomfortable reactions from him, elicit feelings he thought had long since bled out.

 _Don't,_ he wanted to say, if saying as much wouldn't be an obscene display of weakness. _Not like this. I don't want you to see me like this._

But she wasn't afraid. "I _made_ you, Gabriel," she said, and gently began removing the mask. As gentle as she could ever be. "Now let me see what my hands have wrought."

He waited for her to scream again, to scent fear thick in the air. But she scanned him curiously, drinking him in. Then she undid the fastener on his cloak, pushing it from his shoulders, touching his bare arms half in studious, detached examination and half from an unmistakable desire to touch and learn.

There was no fear. There was only her, steadily soaking up this new information, categorizing it and putting it away.

"I'm different," he said, uselessly.

She already knew. Anyone with eyes could see that.

"It's fine," Moira said, eyes still flickering across his face with something like hope in her expression. "I am too."

And oh, she was perfect. She was perfect.

She was perfect.

* * *

.

* * *

Twice or thrice had I lov'd thee,  
Before I knew thy face or name;  
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame  
Angels affect us oft, and worshipp'd be  
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,  
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.

\- From "Air and Angels" by John Donne


End file.
